Page 10 of Don’t Let Your Dukes Grow Up To Be Scoundrels (Dukes in Disguise #1)

Chapter Ten

Today marked Hal’s first official Rogation Day as the Duke of Havilocke, and he was already making a hash of it.

When he was a child, he’d snuck out of Kissington Manor to join the group of men and boys beating the bounds every year. There was a purpose behind the annual tradition—solidifying the community understanding of the boundaries between lands and counties in the absence of detailed maps of the countryside—but for the young Hal, it had been an adventure. An excellent occasion to slip away from the bored tutor whose thankless task it was to teach Hal how to be a gentleman, and escape Kissington Manor, which was either empty and echoing if his parents and elder brother were in Town, or riotous with strangers if they were holding a house party.

Neither situation had inclined Hal towards spending time at home.

So he had run away to join the rogation party, and they had welcomed him with back slaps and jests, sips of cider and singing to pass the miles as they tramped about the countryside.

Then Father had died, and Hal had been sent away to school, and Walter had become the new duke. Hal had missed Rogation Day for many years, away at school and then studying at university, and now he was home, and he was Duke of Havilocke, and nothing was the same.

Instead of the cheer and high spirits he remembered, their dispirited group trudged along the border of a limestone wood like a party of conscripted soldiers on a forced march to battle.

When he’d arrived at the turnstile crossing that morning, the dozen or so men and boys who had gathered there merely nodded in greeting and turned to set off. There was no singing; there was barely any conversation. Rogation Day, which Hal remembered so fondly, had clearly become nothing more than a grim exercise in tradition, another chore in the long, hard string of labors that made up his people’s lives.

Hal took a deep breath of the early spring air, earthy and pungent with the oniony scent of the white-blossomed ransoms carpeting the forest floor. Guilt, his ever-present companion, pressed heavily on his shoulders. His family had broken this place, and done its best to break its people, and sometimes Hal wasn’t sure if he could ever mend it.

This land, and the people who called it home, had been the Montrose family’s responsibility for generations. It was a responsibility many of Hal’s ancestors had taken very lightly—when they weren’t taking full advantage of it to line their own pockets.

Hal looked around him at the familiar, weather-beaten faces of the men he walked with. Farmers and smallholders, tenants and villagers, recent additions to the community and descendants of the village’s founders, men with families and responsibilities of their own.

A complex web of dependence and trust connected them to one another: Mr. Woodhill, an elderly Black freeman from Jamaica, shared his kitchen garden’s overflow with Bess, who turned the abundance of vegetables into savory pies and stews he brought home to share with his friend Mr. Prince. Mr. Mulgrave, a middle-aged white farmer, shared his cows’ milk with the Court family, who in turn gifted him with a share of the butter and cheese they made in their small dairy. The miller, a white man of Scottish descent, Mr. Evans, was married to the baker’s sister, originally a Pickford girl and Bess’s cousin, and the two families together provided much of the county’s bread from the village bakehouse. Mr. Cartwright, an older white man who had served on a merchant ship in his youth and brought home an Indian wife, mended his neighbors’ farm equipment in exchange for hay for his horses.

And where did Hal fit in? What did he have to offer?

He owned the land these people worked and lived and shared and died on. That was all.

An accident of birth, dire chance and unasked for fate, had set him apart from the people who had welcomed him his whole life.

Mr. Cartwright, beside him, used his stout walking stick to brush aside a low-hanging branch and hold it back for the rest of the group, and the way he dipped his head when Hal went past made Hal’s jaw tighten.

The deferential gesture from one of the most respected elders of the village—a man who’d known Hal since he was a wild, ungovernable child—curdled in his stomach like last week’s skimmings.

This was the man who had lifted Hal onto his broad shoulders and carried him, when Hal’s short legs grew tired from the long hours of walking.

“Thank you,” Hal made sure to say, looking the older man directly in the eye.

Mr. Cartwright regarded Hal thoughtfully from under his bushy gray brows. His lined, tanned face was shaded by the brim of his hat but Hal could clearly see that the still-brawny man had something he wanted to say.

Welcoming the distraction from his morose thoughts, Hal squared his shoulders. He prepared to hear another list of repairs that needed doing, requests for aid with handling livestock, or even a grim, low-voiced hint that one family or another was having trouble putting food on the table. In the past year, Hal had heard every one of those concerns and more, often from Mr. Cartwright.

The village blacksmith and farrier, though most of the physical labor was now carried on by his eldest son, Mr. Cartwright had dealings with everyone in the county, regardless of rank, and he was known as a man who spoke his mind. When someone needed help but was too proud or too uncertain to approach the new Duke of Havilocke himself, Mr. Cartwright carried the message.

“What is it, Mr. Cartwright?” Hal asked, his mind already racing ahead to the possible problems to solve and work to be done. “I’m already promised to the Fieldings’ farm for tomorrow, helping them bring the hay in, but beyond that I am at your disposal.”

“Very kind of you,” Mr. Cartwright said slowly, his deep voice gruff. “But I’m not after making more work for you just now.”

“Don’t trouble yourself on that score,” Hal protested. “I like the work. And it needs doing. I’m happy to help.”

“I know you are, lad.” Mr. Cartwright shook his head at himself. “Begging your pardon. Your Grace.”

“Don’t—” Hal said sharply, then cut himself off and forced himself to continue in a more temperate tone. “You can call me lad, or Hal, the same as everyone always has. Nothing has to change.”

The blacksmith’s sharp gaze softened. “But things have changed,” he said, not unkindly. “And wishing for different won’t make it so.”

No one knew that better than the people of Little Kissington, whose lives had encompassed more hardship and deprivation than Hal could bear to think of. Hal felt the back of his neck prickle with heat. Shamed that he’d betrayed even an instant of self-pity for the unbelievable privilege of his elevated rank and position, no matter how much he hated being duke, Hal squeezed his eyes shut and blew out a breath.

When he opened his eyes, Mr. Cartwright clapped him on the shoulder, just as he’d done when Hal was a small boy. The gesture made Hal’s throat close up.

Swallowing hard to clear the obstruction, Hal rasped, “I want things to be different. I never wished for my brother’s death, but I’m glad to have the chance to right his wrongs. Or to try, at least. I know there is no way to completely undo the damage my family has wrought. But I want you to know that I won’t stop trying. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“You’ll work yourself into an early grave, is what you’ll do.” Mr. Cartwright squeezed his shoulder, the large hand gnarled with age and hard use, but still surprisingly strong. “My Khair and I were agreeing on it only last evening. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You can’t go on like this, lad. Living on your own up there at the big house, only coming down to the Five Mile to eat and then going straight back out to work.”

“There’s so much to be done,” Hal began, but Mr. Cartwright cut him off with a look.

“There will always be work. As my Khair says, you must make time for life, or it will pass you by in the blink of an eye.”

Unbidden, Hal’s thoughts turned to Gemma, and as though he could read Hal’s mind, Mr. Cartwright said, “You could start with those ladies who’ve taken over Five Mile House. I reckon that elder Miss Lively could show you a thing or two about how to live. Meaning no disrespect to the lady, of course.”

Hal grinned, feeling his spirits lift. “As the lady herself would be the first to agree with your assessment, I can hardly take offence on her behalf.”

The group had reached the ancient oak at the northern edge of the county, a huge tree with a knotty trunk as wide as three men standing shoulder to shoulder. The branches soared overhead, a canopy of green standing sentinel over the rest of the old growth forest. The rogation party tapped its thick brown bark with their sticks and walked on under the rustling leaves.

“The lady still doesn’t know I’m the duke,” Hal reminded Mr. Cartwright. “You’re right, I need to stop avoiding the truth of who I am now. It does no one any good; it’s only making it confusing for people to know how they should behave around me. And I know this situation with the Lively family is only making it worse, but…”

“But you still don’t want to tell them you’re the duke,” Mr. Cartwright finished for him. “Ah, never fear, lad, we’ll keep your secret. You’ve earned that much loyalty from the people hereabouts, and what do we care about a few Londoners anyhow?”

“Thank you,” Hal said, gratitude and relief fighting for dominance alongside a creeping sense of wrongness at hearing Gemma described as an outsider.

It was nothing but the truth. Nothing but what Hal had been saying and thinking all along. So why did it bother him to hear it now from someone else?

The steely clouds gave way to sunshine as they neared the end of the walk. The afternoon sun hung low in the sky over Little Kissington, glinting and sparkling on the burbling waters of Westcote Brook. The rogation party drew closer to Five Mile House, weary and quiet, and Hal had a sudden, visceral memory of the sort of feasting and celebrating Rogation Day had ended with when he was a child.

I should have arranged for something , he thought with a cold shock of recrimination. Not that the estate could afford much, after settling debts and investing in repairs for the tenants, but something—anything to show that he wasn’t like his brother. That he cared.

That he recognized a need for more than work in a man’s life, as Mr. Cartwright in his gentle way had tried to remind him.

It wasn’t only Hal who was in danger of working himself into an early grave. His people, too, worked hard and constantly in the ceaseless struggle to survive. Maybe what Mr. Cartwright had been trying to say was that they didn’t need another farm hand so much as they needed Hal to be the Duke of Havilocke—a duke who valued his people for more than their work, and enriched their lives beyond the barest bones of survival.

Mired in regret and nearly torn asunder by competing demands and needs and obligations, it took Hal a long moment to understand what he was seeing as he stepped through the doorway of Five Mile House behind the others.

The public taproom was filled with people, and a loud cheer went up when the rogation party walked in, scraping the mud from their boots and doffing their caps in bewilderment.

The men’s families rushed forward in a mass, bearing them off to inspect the trestle table that had been brought up from Bess’s kitchen to hold an astonishing array of platters, plates, baskets and bowls brimming with sweet and savory treats. Beside it, the bar stood ready with casks of ale and cider, which Bess was pouring and handing out with liberal abandon and a wide smile.

Striding across the room between the throngs of happy farmers and pink-cheeked wives and shouting, laughing children, Hal grasped Bess by the elbow just as Gemma and Lucy emerged from the kitchen bearing a platter with a haunch of cold roast beef and a cutting board with a round of hard white cheese. A cheer went up from the gathered crowd at the sight of the roast, and Gemma placed it in the center of the trestle table amongst the loaves of crusty bread studded with chopped walnuts, stewed fruit in jars with honey, and rounds of shortbread bristling with spicy bits of candied ginger.

“What the hell is all this?” There was a harsh edge to Hal’s voice that he hated but couldn’t seem to soften as Gemma strolled over to join them, flushed with triumph.

Bess’s eyes narrowed at Hal’s rudeness, but Gemma only tossed her mahogany curls and gave him a saucy smile. “What does it look like, Mr. Deveril? The Five Mile is hosting a little celebratory feast for bashing the boundaries.”

“Beating the bounds,” Hal corrected between his teeth. He realized his hands were curled into fists and had to make a conscious effort to relax them. “Who is responsible for this asinine idea?”

Frowning at his tense growl, Bess tugged her arm free and went back to pulling pints. “It was my idea, in a way, but Gemma is the one who made it happen. She is a force of nature when she gets an idea in her head, isn’t she?”

The force of nature raised her brows at Hal, some of her pleasure clearly fading in the face of his disapproval. The sight of Gemma filled him with aching, unspent lust, the frustrated tension of going days without touching her smooth, soft skin or hearing ear breathy little moans in his ear.

She had the audacity to stand there looking at him coolly, as though she’d never shuddered to completion in his arms, while Hal felt as though he were burning up from the inside out. It was intolerable.

All of that mixed with his chagrin at not being the one to see what his people needed and provide it, when that was all he was meant to be focused on, and every muscle in Hal’s body tightened as if in readiness for a brawl. Pulling her to the side, away from the party, Hal struggled to keep his grasp on his temper.

“What were you thinking?” he snarled at Gemma, hating himself for the way her eyes widened and the shimmer of hurt she wasn’t quick enough to hide. But he couldn’t stop himself from barreling on. “The Five Mile can’t afford a spread like this. At this rate, you’ll have run through the entire year’s budget before May Day! And I know you won’t care because you won’t be here to see it, but I thought you had more of a heart, more sense , than to be so frivolous with the future of this place. But I suppose it would be too much to ask that you forego the parties and revelries you’re so accustomed to.”

Eyes flashing dark blue sparks, Gemma lifted her dimpled chin and stared him down. “You seem to have forgotten who is the owner of Five Mile House, and who is the employee. I don’t answer to you, Mr. Deveril. And if I want to squander every penny in the coffers on parties and revelries, there is not one single solitary thing you can do to stop me.”

Turning on her heel, she swept out of the taproom and into the darkening dusky of the courtyard, her furious strides kicking her skirts out in a foaming froth of gray-blue silk.

An open-handed smack to the side of his head had Hal cursing and whirling to face his attacker, spoiling for an outlet to release the roiling emotions in his chest, but he found himself staring into the honey brown eyes of his oldest friend.

Bess glared at him. “You’re going to regret that.”

Already beginning to, Hal glanced at the door through which Gemma had disappeared. “I thought I’d made her understand that Five Mile House is in a precarious position. All this food must have cost a small fortune.”

“Most of this food was brought here by the guests,” Bess informed him smartly, her usually smooth movements jerky with annoyance as she filled glass after glass of ale for the revelers.

Lead lined the inside of Hal’s stomach as he began to comprehend the magnitude of his error.

“Mrs. Mulgrave brought her scones,” Bess continued, showing no mercy. “My cousin Flora made ginger biscuits. Mrs. Cartwright brought her lovely curry. Those crocks of pickles and preserves are from Mr. Prince’s own stores. Mrs. Pettigrew contributed a leg of ham they’d been saving. The Five Mile is only providing a place to gather, as we always do, and the roast and the drinks. Which is an expense, certainly, but one that I consider well worth it when I look about me and see the happiness all around.”

Hal didn’t have to look about—he could feel the palpable lightening of spirits as worries and cares melted away in the warm camaraderie filling the air. Work would still be there, in the morning. But perhaps the load would be a bit lighter for having taken this time to set it aside and remember what it was all for.

Across the taproom, sitting with his laughing wife, Khair, Mr. Cartwright raised a half-full mug of cider and toasted Hal.

“It’s almost as I remember it,” he murmured. “From when we were children.”

It was everything Hal had wanted. And he hadn’t been able to make it happen.

Instead, it had been Gemma, this outsider who didn’t know their customs and had no reason to learn because she couldn’t wait to leave and never come back—she was the one who had brought joy and fun back to Little Kissington.

Surveying the taproom with quiet satisfaction in the lull between people approaching the bar for cider, Bess said, “She did a good thing, Hal. Went door to door herself, inviting everyone in town and on the farms, organizing the lot once they started turning up with their little offerings. No matter what they came with, from that Christmas ham the Pettigrews parted with to the basket of walnuts little Esther Hopsgood brought, Gemma exclaimed over each one and thanked every single person, as gracious as a queen but with no queenly airs. She made them feel special, and needed, and appreciated.”

Her voice turned cold, with a chill he’d almost never heard from the girl who’d grown up at his side, running wild and barefoot through the woods. Hal felt the freeze all the way to his bones.

“And then you turned up, and made certain Gemma felt not one bit of the happiness she helped to create.”

The truth crashed down on Hal like a felled tree. He felt sick. “I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t ask.”

He hung his head, hating himself. “You’re right. I’ll go and apologize.”

“Good.” Bess surveyed him critically. “And while you’re at it, you ought to tell her who you really are.”

Hal’s head shot up. “No. I can’t do that, Bess. Don’t ask it of me.”

“Why not? Gemma is a good person. I don’t like lying to her like this. It’s wrong. It’s beneath you, Hal.”

God. No one but Bess would speak to him this way. Hal clenched his teeth against the anger that wanted to come, forcing himself to listen to the woman who was like a sister to him. “I know. Believe me, I don’t like it either. But I’ve trapped us all in this stupid lie, and I don’t see a way out of it that won’t leave Gemma furious and hurt.”

“She’s furious and hurt right now,” Bess pointed out, and Hal grimaced.

“Yes. But I can throw myself on her mercy and be forgiven for an asinine assumption. The other, this deception—it’s unforgiveable.”

Bess was silent for a moment. “There is very little that is unforgiveable between two people who care for one another.”

The words pierced Hal through, sliding in softly, almost gently, and bringing a searing pain that he didn’t know how to contain.

Because he was coming to care for Gemma. He could admit that to himself, if to no one else. But she would not care for him in return. Not enough to stay. Like Father, like Walter and his wife, entranced by the glittering delights of London. Like Mother…Hal shuddered, shutting that thought away in its box.

Gemma would leave, as they all did.

No one stayed.

And he couldn’t bear to spend whatever time he had left before Gemma returned to London, with her hating him.

She would be gone from his life soon enough. If she found out the truth before she went, everything would be over between them that much sooner. Once she knew, she would never speak to him again. Never give him that sidelong look he loved, the one that twinkled from beneath her lashes, glittering with frank desire.

Better that she leave Little Kissington as she planned to, with Hal no more than a memory of laughter and pleasures shared, to remember fondly on a cold night. He could live with that, he thought.

He would have to. There was nothing more for him.

“I must go and find her,” he said firmly. “Gemma deserves to enjoy the celebration she put together. Let her enjoy her time here in Little Kissington as best she can, Bess. What does it matter if she doesn’t know who I am? It wouldn’t change anything. It would only make her unhappy. And, believe it or not, that is something I’m trying to avoid.”

Bess snorted, clearly displeased with his pronouncement but unwilling to argue further. “I’m not the one you need to convince. Get along with you, I’ve thirsty folk to help.”

Taking his dismissal with some relief, Hal skirted the edge of the taproom to avoid getting drawn into the revelry.

Velvety purple twilight blanketed the courtyard, the squawk and scratch of chickens giving way to the evening noises of crickets and the distant babble of the brook. Glancing around the empty courtyard, Hal wondered where Gemma could have gone.

A soft whinny from the stables had Hal’s boots moving in that direction before he even registered the play of shadows across the lamplight spilling from the open barn door.

He’d found her. Gemma stood in front of Beeswax’s stall, rubbing the massive nose of the brown draft horse and speaking to her in a quiet, musical voice. Hal leaned a shoulder against the doorway and listened for a moment.

“Yes, you’re right. He is the worst. I quite agree, Beeswax. What a sweet and perceptive girl you are. You make me miss the mare my father bought me, the prettiest little snow white half-Arabian you ever saw, and such a goer. Much faster than you, Beeswax, and far less interested in grazing! But not nearly as good a listener.”

Despite the cramped sensation of too many feelings crammed into his chest, Hal smiled. He must have also made some slight movement, because Gemma turned that pure, perfect profile to him and said, “Don’t mind me. I’m just out here assessing Beeswax and thinking about how much I can sell her for, to fund yet another lavish, self-indulgent revelry.”

Hal didn’t miss the way she patted Beeswax’s neck as if to make sure the horse knew it wasn’t true.

“Bess explained to me, in the clearest of terms, that I have been a nodcock.”

“Bess is a very wise woman,” Gemma sniffed, turning her back on him once more.

Hal came closer, his eyes devouring the golden glow of the light skimming the lines of her lovely face. “She’s a good friend to you, even when I am not.”

“Is that what we are?” She laughed, a note of bitterness twisting through the husky sound and making Hal’s chest ache. “Friends?”

“I hope so.” He caught her hand and brought it to his lips. “If you will allow me to apologize. I was terribly rude earlier.”

“Not at all,” she replied stiffly, her fingers cold and still in his. “I assure you, your opinion of me does not cause me a single moment’s worry or care.”

“Nor should it,” he agreed instantly. “A lady as fine, stylish, sophisticated, and generous as you should have nothing to do with a cretin like me.”

Her lips twitched halfway to a reluctant smile. “Well, so long as you understand that…”

The coiled knot of tension in Hal’s gut relaxed a bit, and he smiled. She would forgive him, this time.

Not that he deserved it.

Smile fading, he stared down at her for such a long, silent moment that Gemma’s brows furrowed and she began to draw away from him. Holding her fast by the hand, Hal said, “I mean it. You should walk away from me. I am not fit to be near you.”

“But I like you near me,” she said, breathless in the hushed warmth between their bodies. “Even when you make me angry enough to spit.”

Hal clenched his jaw, temptation and desire warring with his better nature. “I’m sorry for what I said before. Truly. You were doing something good, something I can only wish I had thought to do myself. I should have known better than to accuse you of mismanagement.”

“You should have,” Gemma agreed, her eyes clouding. “You should have known me better. If not because you trust me, then at the very least because you should know that running the Five Mile into the ground isn’t remotely part of my plans.”

Her plans. Something inside his ribcage spasmed painfully. “True. And if I’d thought about it for half a moment instead of attacking first…well. All I can say is that I was wrong. I have no excuse.”

Tilting her head to one side, Gemma studied his face as though she could read every jumbled emotion and passing thought scrolling behind his eyes. Hell, maybe she could, because she said, “You could always try making it up to me.”

Between one breath and the next, Hal hardened so fast it made his head swim dizzily.

Looking over his shoulder, Hal scanned the courtyard for any hint of movement. All was quiet, the entire village engaged in celebrating together inside the taproom of Five Mile House.

Something heavy and warm settled low in Hal’s body, throbbing an insistent beat. They were not alone, a crowd of people mere steps away—but somehow it felt as though they were the only two people in the world.

For the first time in days, days of watching her laugh with Bess and bestow that dazzling smile on anyone whose help she needed, days of being shocked at the way she threw herself into the hard, physical labor of renovating the inn—for the first time in all those days of being unable to reach out and touch the living, breathing flame of a woman in front of him…she was suddenly within his grasp.

For this moment, at least, she was his.

The abrupt realization of their closeness, this stolen moment of privacy in the midst of the crowd, gave Hal a heady sensation that slowed his movements. He watched in fascination, almost as if it were someone else’s hand, as his large, work-roughened palm lifted to touch the line of her jaw.

His fingers cupped her cheek, stroking with the tips to wake her shiver, and the spark of molten blue flared to life in her eyes. She sucked in a breath, her gorgeous breasts lifting toward him like an offering wrapped in silk the color of dawn breaking.

“We shouldn’t,” he muttered as her hand came up to grasp his wrist, but she didn’t push him away. Instead, her slim fingers curled around him and clung, as though her knees were wobbling.

Hal could help with that. Pulling her to him with an arm across her shoulder blades, he relished the way she swayed like a sapling, the lush curves of her sweet body yielding to him instinctively.

“We definitely should,” she moaned, and her eyelids fluttered like a dreamer about to wake.

They were pressed together from chest to hip, her skirts swirling around their legs. When he stepped forward to crowd her against the stall door, his thigh slipped between hers and she gave a ragged moan that he caught with his lips.

She tasted like spring water, like sunshine and air and everything Hal needed in order to live. He groaned into her mouth and she turned to fire in his arms. Her eyes flew open and her hands clutched at his hair, pulling his head down so she could take control of the kiss. Hal let her move him where she would, enjoying the flex and curl of her fingers at his nape and the greedy, stinging bite of her fierce kisses as she mouthed along his bearded chin to latch onto his throat.

When her white teeth closed on the bunched muscle of his shoulder where it joined his neck, it was as if a line had been cast between that spot and his aching cock, and every strong suckle at his throat tugged on that line until his erection was straining against the waistband of his homespun trousers.

He reached down to adjust himself, but jolted and stared into her heart-of-the-flame blue eyes when her small hand shot down to catch his.

“Let me,” she husked out, her throaty voice going straight to the pulsing rod of iron in his pants.

It was Hal’s turn to feel as though his knees might give out at any second. “I’m supposed to be making it up to you.”

“You can. By giving me exactly what I want.”

With a muttered curse, he let go of her to grip the edges of the stall’s half-door on either side of her head. Beeswax huffed and turned her back on them.

Hal’s whole body curved around Gemma, sheltering her from view, keeping her safe, keeping here there, with him, where she should always be—where she would only be for this short space of time, time that was fleeting and flitting away so swiftly it felt as though Hal could never keep up.

The heated delirium of desire seemed to throb and expand to fill the scant space between them as Gemma licked her kiss-bruised lips and dropped her hand to trace the line of his waistband. He wore braces, no belt, and it took no time at all for her clever, questing fingers to find the fastening for his trousers.

He sucked in a breath at the brush of the back of her hand over the taut, straining flesh of his manhood as she struggled with his clothing. Gemma paused, her wicked smile widening in delight, and Hal growled, “Christ. You’re going to kill me.”

She leaned up on her tippy toes to nip at his clenched jaw. “This is what I want. It’s my turn to take you apart.”

Of course all that heated whisper did was to remind Hal of the shocked, shivery way she’d climaxed while riding his fingers. The memory of the hot honey of her response coating his hand had Hal hardening further until every breath hurt.

Gemma, his sweet, merciful goddess, chose that moment to take him in hand. Hal’s focus sharpened to the bare inches between them. His pants sagged open, the loose hem of his coarse linen shirt puddling over her delicate wrist and obscuring the movement of her hand. It was torture that he couldn’t see what she was doing.

But he could feel it. And that was its own form of torture.

The surface of his skin seemed alive with prickling torments, sensitive to the lightest tickling of her fingertips down the length of his cock. Not that Gemma, his bold, brave girl, kept it light for long.

After measuring his length by tracing the thick, heavy vein that roped down the underside of his prick, Gemma gave him a look from under her lashes that nearly singed the hair from his head—and grasped his cock in a firm, knowing grip that felt like pure and unadulterated heaven.

Hal grated out a harsh sound he didn’t recognize, squeezing his eyes shut even as she ruthlessly squeezed a stroke up to the very tip of his weeping penis. There she paused, circling the tip of her thumb through the sticky evidence of his passion before using it to slick her glide back down. The wooden planks of the stall door creaked under Hal’s fists, biting into his hands in a way that did not hurt at the moment, but probably would later.

At this moment, all he could feel was tight, hot friction, made hotter by the swift, excited pants of Gemma’s breath puffing lightly against his collarbone. She did something with her wrist, a twist on the upstroke that corkscrewed around the sensitive head of his cock, and he had to muffle a shout against the rigid tendons of his arm.

It had been a long time since he’d felt anyone else’s hand on him, he thought in a daze. That had to be the reason he was so close to spending from nothing more than a kiss and a quick fumble.

And they did need to be quick, he knew; at any moment, someone could notice their absence from the gathering and come searching for them. His heartbeat quickened along with the animalistic snarl of his breath.

Hal closed his eyes and imagined what they’d see, this person who came looking for them. He pictured the darkness of Gemma’s wavy hair bent to his chest, the locked cage of his shoulders and arms, taut with effort. The quick, sure motions of Gemma’s arm and hand as she pulled and rubbed and ruthlessly worked him toward the most explosive spend he could remember.

Biting down on a hoarse shout, Hal clenched his teeth and tore himself free of Gemma. He grabbed his cock and angled his hips to spill in the dirt between their feet, shuddering through the last aftershocks and using a punishing grip to wring out the final drops of pleasure and a relief he felt to his very bones.

“Well,” he rasped, “that could’ve lasted longer.” Hal toyed with the notion of feeling embarrassed by how quick off the mark he’d been, but when he mustered the strength to open his eyes, any chance of embarrassment fled.

Because there was Gemma, leaning indolently against the side of the stall. Her half-lidded gaze was slumbrous with heated fascination as she took in every motion Hal made. Her gorgeous chest rose and fell, and she held his gaze as she lifted her hand—the hand that had caressed him so perfectly—to her lips. The delicate kitten lick of her tongue at the sticky remnants of his spend sent another quaking aftershock through Hal’s loins.

“I take it back,” he growled, reaching for her. “No man alive could resist going off like a top, with you in his arms.”

She laughed, warm and low and delighted, just before their lips met and clung in a soft kiss. A goodbye kiss, Hal realized with regret. They’d been lucky so far, but they had to get back to the party.

Gemma rustled her disarranged clothes back into place and Hal tucked himself away and did up his laces. But when she gave him one last smile and turned to go back inside, Hal caught her arm without quite meaning to.

“Can’t keep your hands off me?” she murmured with a saucy grin that made him want to devour her in a single bite.

“Can’t.” He reeled her in, bent to inhale the warm, spicy scent of her where it was strongest, at the tender junction of her neck and shoulder. “Won’t. Don’t want to.”

Gemma went pliant for a precious instant, but quickly rallied enough to push lightly at his shoulders. He let her go at once, but his hands immediately flexed with the ache of missing her body, soft and supple and vibrant beneath his touch.

What the hell was wrong with him? He had to pull himself together.

“Gemma? Are you out here?” Lucy’s voice, calling from the door of the Five Mile.

“I have to go,” Gemma whispered, and Hal found some consolation in the fact that she looked as conflicted as he felt. With a darted glance at her sister, Gemma pushed Hal behind the propped open door of the barn, out of Lucy’s view. She grabbed his hand and brought it to her lips for a kiss in the center of his hard, callused palm. Then she dropped his hand and walked out of the barn.

Hal curled his fingers over the white-hot imprint of her lips, as if he could keep the kiss safe and take it out later to marvel at it.

“I’m here, Lucy,” Gemma called, lifting her skirts to cross the muddy courtyard. “I only needed a moment. It’s so crowded in there!”

“Come inside, Mama is asking for you,” Lucy urged, and Gemma hurried her steps, vanishing into the inn without a backward glance. Somehow, it sent a pang through Hal’s chest that pierced like the point of a knife.

He needed to get used to the sight of Gemma walking away from him, he mused, wandering back to Beeswax’s stall to give her an apologetic pat. Gemma was always going to leave.

She’d said from the start that she would. Nothing had changed.

Nothing had changed—except that Hal was in grave danger of completely losing his head over this woman.